Let It Be Enough
by themiscyra
Summary: Set after Episode II: One morning on beautiful Naboo, Anakin Skywalker is frightened by the darkness that has begun securing itself away inside of him. Anakin recognizes that the only hope he has is his love for Padmé. Only half so sappy as it sounds.


Rated for moderate, non-graphic images of violence. 

Without anything witty to say here, I'll just settle for the standard "I own none of this" business. I'll have to apologize for any plot-line inconsistencies: this is being written after only ever having seen Episode I and Episode II to completion (yes, you are allowed groan about the kiddies who write fanfictions without even knowing much about the fandom). Just for other tidbit about this fanfic: it was written within a day's time, mostly at around 12 to 1 this morning when I couldn't sleep for the life of me. Hopefully the writing won't reflect that though.

Reviews are welcomed, and I encourage you to challenge what's written here, pick it apart, and tell me exactly what you don't like of it.

* * *

Shortly before the first real rays of dawn, Anakin finds himself at one of his preferred thinking places; the balcony at which he stands overlooks the most beautiful sight – or rather second most beautiful sight – that he has ever encountered, even after a decade spent as a space-faring Jedi Padawan. Below and before him lies a large lake, with waters a dark and glittering cobalt blue, which will shine bright and clear once the sun climbs into the sky—all the water on Naboo seems to be so blessed, so untainted, as if it has never had to taste the sludge and slime of pollution. The fact that there are so many standing bodies of water alone still somehow manages to amaze him, where somewhere inside of him there is a small boy living on a desert planet—that small boy is still awed by every wonder, both new and familiar alike. 

It is not just the water that is so incredibly picturesque, but the entire planet itself as well—the trees, for instance, all appear healthy and lush, as the fields are laden with good summer's harvest. Of course, though stunning the nature of Naboo is, it is not what he finds most captivating about this place—she, after all, is still asleep, though she too will be waking shortly.

Anakin breathes the fresh air deep into his lungs, tasting the sweetness of it and trying to push aside the lingering images from last night's nightmare. For nights now, upon returning with Padmé after the incident on Geonosis, he has had the same dream again and again. The young man is made to watch his mother's death—and his own helplessness to stop it—over and over, night after night, and even so, this is not the most troubling part. What instead grips his stomach, with its iron fist wound tight in his gut, is the scene that always follows: his rage, his slaughter of the Tusken Raider tribe. In his nightmares Anakin sees their faces, and the faces of their children as he uses his lightsaber to hack them apart, sending each to their own dusty grave.

The lightsaber: that is the worst of it, because that's what makes the whole scene so utterly grotesque, what makes it all the more unforgivable. He had massacred them (and does so again and again, every night in his dreams) with a weapon never meant for such killing—he had felled them like a herd of stupid, docile grazers, and had done it mercilessly. The faint, eerie glow illuminating corpses that will not bleed, with all their wounds cauterized, is not something he plans to forget soon (and maybe that is part of the punishment for it)—but with each new day, he tries to anyway.

_ That's what made the whole thing so dirty,_ Anakin thinks, unable to clear his mind though he knows that he should. _The lightsaber was a reminder that Jedi's do not slaughter the unarmed or the helpless._ But hadn't that been it, at the heart of things? His mother had been unarmed and just as helpless, and they…

Anakin shudders inside of his white sleep-shirt, feels a damp breeze lift from the lake and sweep through his hair. His brow is lined deeply, a frown that is set most severely into his forehead, while his eyes are squeezed shut.

_ If the Council finds out…_

There is deep, unrelenting fear biting at him, sinking its tiny, fanged teeth into the space behind his eyes. He remembers standing before the Jedi Council when he was just a boy, remembers being told that he could not be trained, that there was too much fear inside of him. Anakin does not like to think that they were right about him, but he can't lie to himself: the icy grasp around his heart is fear, and nothing else. It is not fear of the Council, or that they should learn about his slaughter on Tatooine, but rather he fears something more implicit: young Anakin Skywalker is terrified of himself, of the darkness he feels lying dormant inside of him, sleeping uneasily, restless.

The birds of Naboo have begun to sing their cheerful morning songs, but the man on the balcony of a very wealthy home does not hear them. A cold, distant sweat stands at his temples, and Anakin imagines the darkness like a terrible snake coiled within him; he can feel its chilling scales in his throat, in the backs of his knees, and even under the fingernails of his remaining hand. The night his mother died that darkness had raised its serpentine head, and he was afraid that the poison it had unleashed, the all-consuming hatred that had burned in him that night, would spread.

On that night one of his boundaries, one fortress he had erected against the encroaching darkness, fell. With the death of his mother had also come the death of one of his defenses, and now that hatred was all the more closer to reaching his heart.

In the furthest parts of him, his barriers against the Dark Side (Anakin cannot pretend that it isn't something so sinister as he knows it is) are constructed of the Jedi teachings, as well as the ideals held by the Council. Though it makes a piece of him feel sick rather than proudly defiant (and he knows they all think he's just young and arrogant), Anakin realizes that there are things that he puts before his teachings, and that he puts before the will of the Council. One of these things had been his mother. These barriers will fall first if (_when,_ he thinks, nausea sweeping through him) the time comes.

Closer to his core another barrier is his will, and somewhere mixed with that is a desire to stand under Obi-Wan's direction, to make the Jedi man proud. Anakin likes to think that his strength of mind could alone hold off the invading shadows; if his willpower were to have a face, he imagines that it would not be unlike his mentor's. Again, however, he knows that if it were possible to will away this anger and pain and fear, that he would have done so already. There is little that he is more eager to do than rid himself of the venom he can feel making inroads to his heart. Now, seeking some form of reassurance, chasing a fleeting glimmer of hope, his mind turns to what he knows as his last defense—the only one that has any real chance of holding in his darkest hour.

With the light mist of morning fog evaporating off of the lake, Anakin thinks of Padmé, and there is a lifting about his shoulders; he thinks that maybe the world is more forgiving than he has known in the past few months. She is his last, his only stronghold of hope in a sea of red despair. Such an intoxicating planet only helps him to feel that more: she is the steadying of the world under him and within him. Anakin hears the rustle of curtains, and as Padmé steps behind him, he can feel the silk of her nightdress on her skin, as if it were his skin. He imagines that he feels the way her hair grows, feels the dim shadows that her eyelashes cast along her cheekbones, feels the weight of her standing firm and barefoot on the ground.

Anakin picks up a half-grin like one may pick up something shiny and interesting from the grass, turns to her with his smile a bit lopsided, but all the same mischievously friendly—but Padmé, he sees, is not smiling. Her eyes are solemn, and though the grim expression on her face is beautiful (he guesses that no matter her expression, she will always be beautiful) the young man aches for her return smile. She reaches out to him, gently touches his chest; her face is grave, and Padmé runs her fingers against his loose, expensive and satiny shirt.

Sunlight pours down around them now, thick and honey-like, giving rich life to what in the gray morning was ashen. Before Anakin's eyes it seems that Padmé's lips are fuller, and her cheeks appear to fill rose-colored, and light is captured in her bed-tasseled hair. His breath catches in his chest, trapped like a caged animal; he thinks that he could live this way, all his life spent simply gazing at her, with his air stuck halfway in his throat.

"You've had another nightmare," Padmé speaks softly to him, and there is concern in her large brown eyes. "Tell me about it." Her lips pull slightly downwards at the corners, _Let me help_, is what she is saying when she isn't speaking. Anakin loves her so that he feels his heart may burst inside of his chest, and cannot help himself: without hesitation he leans towards her, and kisses her tenderly, feels that if he is to hold back this darkness, then he will need all the gentle compassion that he can muster. He cups her neck with his human hand, holding her head lightly as he kisses her, feeling the soft curls of her hair spill over the back of his fingers. The other hand he leaves at his side; it does not feel--it does not belong in this.

"Anakin?" She entreats him, her breath warm on his lips.  
He does not answer; kisses her again instead.

_ If you lose her?_

That is simple though, isn't it? If he loses her, then he loses it all—his humanity and every hope of human kindness will evaporate from him, just like the lake-fog in the sun.

A tear escapes his tightly closed eyes, and his feels Padmé pull away from him upon feeling the dampness of it on her own face. She looks up at him (his eyes are closed, but he can still see her face, her beautiful, loving face) and her hands—soft as wet clay, warm as a slept in bed—come to his face, and hold him gently.

"Anakin, what's wrong?"  
_ Just let this be enough,_ he hopes.

"I dreamt… of my mother." Anakin does not lie to her, but he cannot tell her his true fear. He could never bear the look she would give him, if he told her that he was afraid of losing her, not only because he loves her, but also because he knows the darkness would swallow him whole. The young man, Jedi apprentice, cannot tell his love that he is afraid of something terrible and uncontrollable inside of him. He cannot.

_ Please, let her be enough to hold it back.  
Let it be enough_.

"Oh, Anakin, I'm sorry," Now Padmé takes him in her arms, and they stay like that for a few pure moments, all to themselves. At last he turns from her, back towards the view of the lake—and now, even so early as this, small boats and clippers are moving about on it, fishermen and fisherwomen going to work. With both hands he grasps the balcony's ledge: with one hand he can feel the stonework already warming in the sun, and with the other hand, he feels nothing.

_ It will be enough,_ Anakin tells himself, commanding it to be so. _It will be enough—of course it will be. How could it not?_ But even then, in the bright daylight, sturdy, spending one of the rare moments he and his wife should ever have together alone—even then, he knows that that isn't how things work. He cannot _force_ it to be, can only hope and for all he's worth, he will have to love. _But I'm the One—I'm the One, the prophecy says that I will bring balance to the Force,_ and even inside his mind, he thinks that the voice he hears is whining, a scared child.

Why does he feel like he will die fulfilling that prophecy?  
_ Stop being morbid, and just enjoy what you have._

Anakin again musters a smile (which is quite charming in a playful way) and takes Padmé's hand in his. She watches him closely for a second or two, but then seems to decide that maybe it would be better just to let go of whatever sadly unpleasant air Anakin had had, rather than let it linger. They both turn to face over the lake, to the mountains rising up into the clouds, far in the distance—seas of emerald grass sway and flutter as the wind passes over them, and small, vibrantly colored birds swoop and dive, building nests and homes for themselves.

Hands joined, Anakin steals glimpses of his beautiful wife from the corners of his eyes, while she stares ahead, her own eyes busy surveying what is her lush and fruitful homeland.

_ Please,_ and this time he is not hoping or commanding, but begging.

_ Let it be enough. _


End file.
